Eternally Hopeless
by wolfgirlnowandforever
Summary: Gameverse. Sure, they argue practically every time they meet up, but underneath it all, Falkner thinks that maybe he and Janine care about each other. ...At least a little. Mild Falkner/Janine


**A/N:** Fatherlyshipping, my gym leader OTP~! I'm always worried if I characterize Janine and Falkner right... so let me know what you think? This is part two of that two-part kink meme fill, by the way.

* * *

"That was incredibly stupid of you." Janine murmured, pressing the alcohol soaked cotton swab to his wound.

Falkner winced at the sting, but tried his hardest not to let it show. "I still stand by what I did." He said, focusing his eyes on the girl's face instead. Her expression remained calm and collected, but Falkner could see a slight tightening in her eyes.

"You could have gotten yourself killed." She said, lifting the thing off the cut on his arm to inspect the damage. It wasn't particularly deep, and she had taken care not to let any dirt get in, but it still looked pretty bad. At least the bleeding had stopped.

He raised an eyebrow. "I had the situation completely under control, Janine. I've done much more dangerous acts when training my Pokémon."

The next round of alcohol seemed to sting a little more than the last time, but that may have been because Janine pressed the cotton against his skin a little harder. He watched her face, but she still didn't show anything besides cool indifference.

She keep her eyes the task at hand when she spoke up again. "Jumping out of a six story window isn't exactly what I call 'controlling a situation' Falkner."

He let out a little laugh at that. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you were worried about my safety."

She rolled her eyes. "Please. I'm just berating you for your stupidity. If you had just sent out your Pokémon instead of recklessly throwing yourself out the window, I wouldn't have to tend to your wounds right now."

"I didn't need your help." Falkner said, gesturing to the gashes on his arm. "Not that you aren't doing a good job. I just could have done this myself."

"Ha." She laughed, letting her disbelief color her short outburst. "Really now, Falkner? If it wasn't for me, you might have bled out by now."

"Are you kidding me? It's barely a flesh wound." He said, attempting to pull his arm out from underneath her fingers. Her grip was surprisingly strong though, and the glare she gave him was enough for him not to try it again. She was determined to take care of it, and he knew that he wouldn't get past her stubborn determination. "Really, I'm fine."

She sighed. "You're hopeless is what you are."

"How was what I did hopeless?" He asked, genuinely curious. Anybody else would have done what he'd done, given the circumstances. Couldn't she see that?

She half smiled at him, her expression suggesting that she thought that he wouldn't understand even if she explained it to him. It was the same expression she got just before they started arguing. "Where should I start? The fact that you literally threw yourself out of the sixth floor of Celadon Department Store?"

"You would have done the same thing if you had been the one to see that Pokémon first." Falkner said, feeling a little put out by how she'd said it. She made it sound like he'd done something stupid when in fact he'd saved that Pokémon's life.

She shook her head. "No, I would have called out my Ariados and had it use String Shot before throwing myself out of a building without thinking of, oh I don't know, how I was supposed to save myself maybe?"

He felt his face flush a little. "I called out my Pidgeot in time, didn't I?"

"And what if you hadn't? You would have snapped your neck." She said, letting her eyes go wide. He couldn't tell if it was to tease him or if the thought had actually worried her. "Honestly, what were you thinking, Falkner?"

He paused, letting her question settle in his mind for a bit. What had he been thinking, actually? The only thoughts he could remember were that he'd seen a Pokémon in trouble and that he couldn't let it get hurt. He shrugged, wincing at the sting it sent up his arm. "I don't know. I guess I wasn't." He eventually said. It was the honest truth.

"Exactly, you weren't thinking." Janine said, shaking her head. She lifted the cotton from his hand and clicked her tongue. "It's looking a lot better."

"Everything looks better when it's not a gory mess." He said, cracking a grin. Janine, for all her bluster and haughtiness, had actually shown a squeamish side of herself when she first saw his wound. The broken glass had cut him pretty badly, and she'd had to psych herself into going up to him at first. Of course, she denied the fact that it had ever happened, but he had seen her biting her lip and hesitate.

She sent another glare his way, but it didn't have the same heat as it usually did. Her purple eyes wandered over the rest of his body, scanning for any extra injuries. He assured her earlier that he wasn't hurt anywhere else, but she kept looking at him as if he'd start bleeding again at any minute.

She pulled out a roll of bandages and held them up to him. "You're going to need these. Hold still while I wrap them around your arm, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." He said, letting the sarcasm drip from his voice. He held his arm out as she unraveled the long white bandage and started rolling it around his arm. She was pretty good at it, binding it tight enough so that the bandage didn't slip, but not so tightly that it was uncomfortable. She must have had some experience with this.

It was kind of funny. This was the first time they had spent so much time together that wasn't spent arguing about their fathers. He found actually enjoyed her company.

"You could have died you know." She said, and her voice sounded different from before.

Falkner tilted his head, surprised by her words. She really sounded concerned. "Yes, I know that."

Her fingers stilled and she took her eyes off her work to look up at him. "You don't seem to be worried about that at all though."

He shook his head. "I wasn't."

She frowned, her eyebrows knitting together. "That's what I don't understand. You were so close to really and truly dying, and yet here you are without a care in the world. It's maddening!" She said, quickly getting back to the bandage.

"I knew that Pidgeot would catch me before I reached the ground." He said, his voice sure. He trusted his Pokémon more than he trusted himself, and the moment that his fingers had wrapped around the familiar red and white sphere, he knew that he was safe. Why didn't Janine see that?

"But I didn't know." She said, and it was hardly more than a whisper. "I really thought that you were done for, and I couldn't even call out my Pokémon to help you. I was… I was too afraid to do anything."

He blinked, her sudden admission startling him. "Afraid?" He asked.

She nodded, and she let her hands drop away from him. She'd mostly finished with the bandage anyways. "I couldn't move. One minute we were arguing like we always do and the next… you were falling and all I could think was, 'He's going to die. He's going to die and I can't do anything to help.' It's stupid, I'm a ninja after all."

He shook his head. "It doesn't really matter what you are, Janine. Everybody reacts differently in that kind of situation and—"

"I'm supposed to be able to think on my feet though." She interrupted him. When she looked up at him, he could see that this was really affecting her. "I… I'm sorry. I should have acted back there, and all I could do was stand there and gawk."

He blinked at her, taken back by what she'd said. He didn't have time to process what this meant to him (or why his heart was suddenly beating faster in his chest) and instead said the first thing that he could think of. "I don't blame you for anything, you know."

She seemed confused by his words, but at least she stopped looking so upset. "You don't?"

He shook his head. "If I couldn't think straight, that means you couldn't either. I mean, we're basically on the same level mentally, so I could hardly blame you."

"Really?" She asked.

He nodded. "Yes, really. You didn't do a half bad job at patching me up either."

"Thank you." She said, smiling. He'd never noticed it before (perhaps because he'd never actually seen it) but her smile was very pretty. She looked a lot nicer when she smiled, and he didn't bother to question the way his pulse quickened. Anybody would feel like this when facing such a nice smile, right?

"Hey, wait a second…" She said, processing his earlier words. He wondered if she understood that he had been just as afraid, but that he knew what he was doing, or maybe that even though her smile was nice, it didn't mean he considered her less of a rival. Or something like that, he couldn't exactly think straight right now, with the adrenaline leaving his system. But then she did something that really surprised him.

She laughed.

Janine brought her hands up to her mouth and giggled, a soft happy sound that he hadn't known that she was capable of making. He stared at her, startled at the direction his words had taken. Maybe he said something that made her snap?

She glanced at his face and that sent her into a fresh wave of laughter. She slowly made herself stop, but the smile didn't leave her face. "S-Sorry, but the idea that we could ever be on the same level is just too funny." She held her hand over her mouth again, pressing her lips together to stop from laughing again.

He realized what it was that she was laughing at and frowned at her, though there wasn't any malice in it. "Hey, I really do consider you on the same level as I am. I don't spend my Mondays arguing with just anyone, you know."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh please, you never win in those arguments."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because you're the one who always walks away in a huff when you can't come up with a good comeback."

"I do not!" She said, looking outraged at his suggestion. "Let me tell you something, Falkner—"

She started off on another tirade that he quickly volleyed back her way, but he noticed something that hadn't happened before.

She hadn't stopped smiling at him.

And his heart was still racing. Strange.


End file.
